So you’ve completed a new business marketing video. Everybody on your team loves it. Great! So what do you do with the new video now? How do you get it out there to the world? Where should you upload it?

We’re all familiar with YouTube. It’s the biggest and most used video platform in the world. No doubt about it. Hundreds of millions of minutes are loaded onto YouTube daily. It’s a great home for your footage and it can help with your Google analytics and SEO . But is that the best place to put your video? Is it the only place to put your video? When hosting your video, think about the needs of your business.

Here’s a list of hosting platforms that you may not know about and the business-focused features you can expect from each.

Vimeo – Vimeo is the second largest video hosting platform. It’s great for artistic videos, great for creative professionals to host your work, personal videos, your portfolio, and samples. It’s great for production companies to load videos and not have to deal with ads on your videos, so your viewer can focus on your video and content. It has a very clean image and player; much better looking than YouTube (in our opinion). Your Vimeo channel and player can be customized as well which gives you many options how to display and organize your videos. You can also add collections, become a member and follow different Vimeo groups, and be involved in the Vimeo community and get inspired by other artist’s work. Finally, one of our favorite PROS is that you can upload and share videos longer than 15 minutes. Many other platforms have a time limit. You can get started for free with a basic account and upgrade to Pro and Plus paid memberships.

Wistia – If you’d like a thorough analysis of the results of your video, Wistia might be the right choice for you. Wistia is definitely geared towards video for businesses. There’s awesome analysis and video marketing tools available for you. You can see what your viewers watched, rewind, skip, replay, and also what other videos of yours they’ve watched. They have heat-maps which show favorite parts of videos and allow companies to target what exactly their viewers want to see. Wistia also has a call to action button at the end of the video which allows you to steer your viewers to another landing page, blog, or promotion of yours. Wistia also has the ability to generate and collect emails from viewers interested in your videos. You can try Wistia out for free with limited features, and upgrade from there to their bigger packages with more tools.

Vidyard – If you really want to break down the analytics of your videos even further and focus on making sure your videos are helping drive business, then Vidyard is another great hosting platform to consider. They will custom build and tailor a package for you and your needs, rather than sell you a bunch of features that you will never use. They have an enormous amount of tools available. From A/B testing and comparing of your videos, to lead generation, call to actions, heat-maps and graphs, and easy sharing and integration with social media. Vidyard helps focus on your leads, the contacts who watched your videos, and which videos are contributing to your ROI. It all comes with a price, like many of these video platforms, but very worth it if you want to track your results and drive business through video. Finally, their video speeds are blazing fast! Your viewers will not be waiting for your videos to load with Vidyard.

Sproutvideo – Another great subscription based hosting platform. Sprout has many many pro options and tools, more than you might need. Everything from security, to engagement tracking, and lead generation. You can track and tag your viewers and see the length of time they spent watching your videos. You can get their location and learn what type of device they watched on as well. There are lead captures, call to action features, and social sharing similar to other platforms. One thing we notice that we like, is how many options they give with player customization and the aesthetics of your videos. This may be very important to some companies. Depending on the plan you purchase, the amount of video you can upload will vary. The packages aren’t cheap, but definitely worth trying their free trial period.

Viddler – Viddler is another platform centered on helping businesses. It provides interactive online media solutions for corporate companies, interactive training, and digital publishers. Viddler pioneered the technology for in-video commenting and tagging. This is a great tool for businesses that focus on learning based video and content, and also for companies that want to give their viewer an interactive experience. The interactive element is useful for both customers and internally to your own employees. Studies show that interactive learning through video is very effective and more engaging than static video. Viddler offers many similar analytics and viewer engagement tools, call to action options, and various marketing tools. We do like how easy it is to upload videos and share them seamlessly, and especially the ability to batch load.

These are just a few of the excellent options out there. They each have their own pros and cons. It’s not real fair to compare each with each other because they offer different features and services. Apples and oranges. One thing is for sure, is to think about your audience, and how you want to use your video to help your business. Do you just want something free and easy to use with the simple intent of getting your name and video out there? Or do you want an effective tool that will help drive more business? In some instances, it’s good to use multiple players and upload to more than one platform, for different applications and tracking purposes. Have a plan and take advantage of these tools.